Never not running. Never not travelling. Never not dreaming.

A bit healthy and outrageously tasty GINGERBREAD CAKE

I love working from home every once in a while. In fact, I try to do it at least once a week. The reality however is that I manage to have home office day only occasionally as meetings seem to jump in my calendar regularly and “interrupt” my scheduled admin home time. This also means that I am permanently behind with all of my admin tasks but that’s another story…

Usually when I have home office this means that I end up working way too many hours on the day and I am too busy to go even for a pee. I’m sure that some of you know exactly what I mean!

Couple of weeks ago I had a scheduled home office day and when one of my friends, who happened to have a day off from her work on the same day, asked me if I want to catch up for a coffee at 3pm I thought “why the heck not”.

But, because I had loads of work to do and felt guilty for having a break during the work time (stupid with all the hours I usually work but that’s me), I invited her for coffee to my flat.

As soon as I invited Lenka I realized that I need something sweet to go with the coffee and that I don’t have anything so I need to – super quickly – make something from what I have home. And I did! And it tasted lovely! And both Lenka and I enjoyed it!

And then I posted a picture of our cakes feast on my facebook and someone asked for recipe. So here you go…

A bit healthy and outrageously tasty GINGEBREAD CAKE

And because I’m ME and everything with me needs to be easy and straightforward I use cups as a measure (as always).

You will need:

2 ½ cups of flour (I use wholemeal)

1 cup brown sugar

3 apples (not the biggest in the world)

1/2 cup of coconut oil

2 eggs

3 tbsp cocoa

1 baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

gingerbread spices (cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves, nutmeg)

finely grated zest from ½ lemon

handful of chia seeds

handful of wallnuts

handful of dried cranberries

a bit of Czech Rum (if you have it)

a bit of shredded coconut

How to make it:

Firstly you need to get your baking tin ready to make sure that your cake doesn’t get stuck. Put a little bit of coconut oil the inside of your tin, spread it all around and then put some shredded coconut inside. Tip the coconut around to make sure that it completely coats the oil, then tip the excess coconut in a bowl.

First let’s finely grate the apples. Don’t forget to take the skins of beforehand.

Now you need to make the batter. First beat (I use a blender) the eggs with sugar in a bowl and then, one by one, add all of your other ingredients. Add your grated apple.

Finely grate zest of your lemon and add a bit of Czech rum (or, if you can’t get your hands on this liquor, you can replace it with a bit of vanilla extract which also tastes lovely), add it into your batter and mix well.

Baking time! Make sure your oven is preheated to 160C. The cake will take about 30 minutes to bake. You’ll know when it’s done when your skewer comes out clean after you stuck it in the middle.

Cake is ready? Take it out of the oven, let it cool down for a bit and then…

… “tramtadadaaaaaa” ENJOY!

HAVE FUN MAKING IT! ENJOY EATING IT!

What’s your relationship with gingerbread cakes?

And how productive are you when you are working from home?

Do you also feel guilty when you work less than 12 hours when working from home?

P.S. I made this pretty healthy cake since both Lenka and I are runners.